ABSTRACT
The Icelandic sagas were written at the precipice of the West’s First Sexual Revolution. The Church broke radically with previous mating regimes by imposing lifelong monogamy even on the most powerful of men. The ideology of heroic love had justified the rape and capture of females outside of one’s kin group. Some men hoarded women by the tens, hundreds, or even thousands. The sagas try to convince Icelanders—the last Germanic tribe still to live in kin groups—to join European normalcy by accepting the imperative of lifelong monogamy. Their Viking ancestors’ violent heroics are partly aggrandized, but their polygyny and sexual slavery are whitewashed and portrayed to belong in a bygone era. Several sagas use a narrative device that discourages practices related to polygynous mating. Their very structure promotes a monogamy-aligned bachelor phase. Successful Vikings would have been incentivized to spend decades pursuing additional mates. Their fictional counterparts are given only a few years to amass wealth and status before they must settle down and marry one woman for life. Those who extend their bachelor phase are severely punished. The sagas portray as antisocial the men who prefer adventure and brotherhood rather than submit to Europe’s feudal ideals.
